Re: Nothoscardum

--- p.k.peirce@att.net wrote:
> The nothoscardum in my San Francisco City College 
> teaching garden has no scent, and has been
> identified by 
> the California Natural History Herbarium as N.
> inodorum. 
> It has bulbs with many bulblets which are very deep
> in 
> the soil, almost below the depth of an average
> shovel. 
> When you get them, you see that some of the bulbs
> are 
> white, so you can see them against the soil, while 
> others are brown, so blend in. 

Thanks to all for helping identify the correct name of
this weedy plant, I apoogize for falsely maligning the
Nectaroscordum genus in the process, but the name
sounded so similar that I confused the two.  Pam's
description of the non-fragrant species most closely
matches what I have been seeing, although I might add
that it seems to take several years for the bubils to
reach sufficient size to form the larger foliage, and
the smaller sized plants tend not to bloom for the
first year or two, and the foliage texture is so
different as to appear a different plant.  I haven't
seen this spread by seed, but can confirm that it is
insidiously spreading by any remnant bulbil left in
the ground.  It is amazing to hear some of the stories
such as John's regarding rooting out every last bit of
this plant; in the garden I was taking care of which
had this, that would have seemed impossible. The best
I was able to do was manage it, not eliminate it.  For
any one similarly afflicted, pulling up clumps after
the first good soaking rains made it come up easily,
although there were always some smaller bulbils left
behind. These could usualy be eliminated by continued
puling of foliage until the bubil's food reserves were
exhausted.  I resorted to this less intensive method
due to the mixture of other bulbs such as Ipheion and
Astroemeria in the same areas, which made digging soil
and sorting through it all too time consuming of a 
task.  (This same garden was also full of Oxalis pes
caprae, so it had it all!) 

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